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Post by humphreyclarke on Sept 27, 2009 12:25:10 GMT
There was quite a good article on this subject a while back from Timothy Ryback www.theatlantic.com/doc/200305/rybackIan Kershaw is quoted as saying of Hitler: "I don't think that he had any real belief in a deity of any sort, only in himself as a 'man of destiny' who would bring about Germany's 'salvation,' I don't think he is right about that. You do get the impression that he veers between a kind of agnosticism and a belief in a remote creator God (especially in his later years when he was preoccupied with his own mortality). Nethertheless Kershaw wrote the best biography of Hitler available so his opinion has to be taken seriously. I guess I should add, even if Hitler was an atheist or a Christian, so what?. There were plenty of bona fide atheists in the Nazi Hierarchy and plenty of Christians in the Wehrmacht (not to mention those 600,000 German Protestants who rejected the Old Testament, ousted people defined as non-Aryans from their congregations, denied the Jewish ancestry of Jesus, and removed Hebrew words like 'Hallelujah' from hymns). |
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Post by bjorn on Sept 27, 2009 13:18:22 GMT
Ah, thanks, Humphrey!
Though, had I seen this first, it would have saved me a lot of typing ;D
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Post by himself on Sept 27, 2009 18:09:49 GMT
Sorry, but either the man believed in a supernatural entity that he called God or he didn't. He did. So he was a theist. I'm not sure what evidence you have that he believed Providence (Fate) was any more a supernatural entity than the modern God of Choice (Will). Neither is an empirical, material entity, yet is called upon quite often to justify this or that line. Like I said, I'll have to go with the historians on this one. |
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Post by Al Moritz on Sept 27, 2009 18:34:23 GMT
Sorry, but either the man believed in a supernatural entity that he called God or he didn't. He did. So he was a theist. I'm not sure what evidence you have that he believed Providence (Fate) was any more a supernatural entity than the modern God of Choice (Will). Neither is an empirical, material entity, yet is called upon quite often to justify this or that line. Like I said, I'll have to go with the historians on this one. Whatever he may have been, Hitler clearly was not an atheist, which was part of Tim's original observation. That is why I agreed on Tim's deal which strictly referred to that. Regardless if further he was a "theist" or not. |
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Post by himself on Sept 28, 2009 0:18:10 GMT
Sure, but I don't think those are the only, or even the accurate ways of describing this. The categories are way too broad to be useful. It's like talking about colors as "greenish" and "not greenish."
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Post by timoneill on Sept 28, 2009 2:09:17 GMT
I don't think he is right about that. You do get the impression that he veers between a kind of agnosticism and a belief in a remote creator God (especially in his later years when he was preoccupied with his own mortality). Nethertheless Kershaw wrote the best biography of Hitler available so his opinion has to be taken seriously. If you say so, but his opinion doesn't make a lot of sense. Hilter clearly believed that this "providence" was an entity, was supernatural and he called it "God". If that doesn't make him some kind of theist I can't see why. He also seems to have considered this "God" a creator. Sorry, but if it looks like a theist and quacks like a theist it would seem to be a theist, if a very nasty one. Indeed. The argument that "Bad Person X was a Y so Y is bad" is pretty asinine. The fact that Hitler, Stalin and various religious tyrants did bad things seems to be an argument against tyrants and not much else. I'm not objecting to Hitler being wrongly claimed to be an atheist because I'm an atheist. I'm objecting because it's historically nonsense. Back on topic - Roger Pearse has done a good job of fixing the Wikipedia entry on Mithras and making it into something that is supported by scholarship. Let's see how long before the vandals and Acharya S cultists turn up to make it into a dog's breakfast again. |
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Post by humphreyclarke on Sept 28, 2009 20:38:06 GMT
I'm not objecting to Hitler being wrongly claimed to be an atheist because I'm an atheist. I'm objecting because it's historically nonsense.. I think that's the last thing I would call him. Except perhaps 'devout Catholic'. Actually there was one interesting study by J. P. Stern which showed that the Nazis plagiarised large chunks of the Lutheran Bible and incorporated it into Hitler's Speeches to enhance the themes of suffering and deliverance. |
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Post by hawkinthesnow on Oct 6, 2009 19:55:20 GMT
Bjorn's post seems to settle the matter in my view. Whatever else Hitler was he was not a Christian theist. And if he was a theist, well, so what? There really is nothing to deal with. If every theist who ever lived was a mass murderer that would be irrelevant to the truth or falsehood of theism.
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Post by timoneill on Oct 7, 2009 8:31:41 GMT
Bjorn's post seems to settle the matter in my view. Whatever else Hitler was he was not a Christian theist. Just a theist. Please spread the word to those historical illiterates who claim he's an atheist. No arguments there. Please explain to those who argue that Stalin being an atheist means something or other that the above is true about atheists as well. |
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Post by humphreyclarke on Oct 7, 2009 9:13:34 GMT
Sounds fair.
I don't really have much time for the 'argument from twentieth century body-count'.
On the 'terrible things are done in the name of religion/atheism' point, the one thing that amazes me about history is the way that terrible things are done in the name of pretty much anything. There was even a war between El Salvador and Honduras in 1969 over a Soccer qualifier. They take their football pretty seriously in Latin America.
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Post by humphreyclarke on Oct 13, 2009 6:28:07 GMT
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